Reviews Books

Ralph Castillo, a Professor of English at Palo Alto College,
is living testimony to the reality that community colleges
offer first rate instruction. Castillo could be teaching
at Harvard, but instead chose to help educate the sons and
daughters of the poor and dispossessed. His publications are
too numerous to mention.

I read Rafael Castillo's collection DISTANT JOURNEYS and found the stories interesting and memorable. They were fascinating. Although the book cover does not do justice to the book, the stories do reflect an original voice. I would definitely buy another of Mr. Castillo's books and have used them in my composition classes. Students like the stories because they are short, precise, and entertaining; I like them because they can easily be interpreted at various levels and are excellent prompts for writing.

This strangely funny book is a really a slim volume of fictional philosophy with a penchant for the ironical. Please don't judge this book by its cover because the art design is amateurish and probably done by a grad student learning design. Castillo's fictional pieces are short and intense with an edge toward the comical yet structured on a Woody-Allen type format with a Chicano voice. All the stories are well-written, hilarious, and thought provoking. I think this book will no doubt be used in graduate literary theory courses making fun of graduate literary courses. A quick read into Chicano literature of the 21st century.

Rafael Castillo's DISTANT JOURNEYS is a collection of postmodern fiction with a twist toward the O. Henry ending, either intentional or ironic. The book's focus seems to be on mythic tales of journeys: from the eerie landscape of Latin American to the down-and-out boulevards of Paris to the mundane barrios of San Antonio where Kafkaesque characters vie for prominence and spectacle. Seemingly theoretical in some parts, the fiction blends twists of Derridean Deconstruction with laughable portrayals of pseudo-intellectuals who become, inescapably, symbolic references for other fictions and stories. It's almost like Michel Foucault and Ernest Hemingway tangled with The Three Stooges at the Bronz Zoo. There is high drama with a wide smile, philosophical interludes with Kierkegaard and a Dwarf smitten by a young damsel, and political rhetoric disguised as allegory and fable. Tightly written and compact, the stories are remarkably short and to the point. They are cleverly written, intellectually diverse, and wholly original because the writer is probably a generation ahead other Chicano writers attempting this type of fiction. Bilingual Review Press is definitely at the forefront of hip, existential fiction. Hey, I'm hooked on this writer.

This book is a great resource for all parents, whether their child has a speech concern or not. I really enjoyed the practical activities and helpful guidelines. I now know what to expect at different age levels and this book has allayed any concerns I might have about my child's speech or language. Great book!!

Wonderful book! This book is a great resource for all parents, not just those concerned about a potential problem in their childs'speech development. Knowing the guidelines for normal speech and language development have reassured me about my childrens' speech patterns. Question and answer format is easy to read and understand. I would recommend this book to everyone!

Does My Child Have a Speech Problem is a terrific recource book for parents, as well as teachers. As both, I find myself referring to it often as my children and their language grow and develop. I am using it in the classroom to further assist my abilities in helping to identify and refer students to the Speech and Language Department. I highly recommend this book to all parents and teachers.

This book will be at tremendous help to any parent wondering if their child has any sort of speech problem. The book is organized well, broken down by the various sorts of speech problems, so it's quite easy for a lay person to focus on their concerns without having to wade through lots of irrelevant information. I came to the book with the same question: Does my child have a speech problem and this book helped me find the answer and led me to the help we needed. I strongly recommend this book for any parent with that same question. It will help you find your answer and help you see that you are not alone.

(Purchased on 05/01/2008) Have wanted this book for some time and found it cheapest at Amazon.
This book is well layed out and organized by disease process and symptoms, good to have on hand for quick reference (but don't leave it lying around the ER, it will disapear fast).
Easy read. I would recomend for med students/residents or ER nurses.

...I just like to read everything about medicine, because I hope to be a doctor one day. I found this book in the medical library at our university, and I liked it a lot. Compared to any textbook I have ever read, it is very clear and basic, but still covers a lot of information, and has a good balance between the weird trivial information that probably comes up occasionally, but is good to know about when it does, and the basic stuff. Also, some of the doctors who write chapters actually have a sense of humor, which makes the book interesting to read. Check out the chapter about bites and stings by Lee Shockley, which is particularly entertaining.

When I started work in an emergency department this book gave me many tips to solve some difficult cases. It is written in a way you can read it for few minutes in between patient visits in your night shift. The readability is high and you never get bored because it fixes every question in few lines (maximum 20 but mostly less than 10).
Obviously it is not really comprehensive, due to the small dimension and the question-response format; but it is sufficient also to study on it for examinations. It requires at least a basic understandig of medicine and it is not interesting for a lay person in many chapters.

This book provides a weath of information, and is a great study guide for residents.

Good questions in USMLE format and a fair number of questions with pictures, EKGs, x-rays, CTs etc. Good explanations of correct and incorrect choices. Overall, very good review of emergency medicine for Step 2 CK.

This book served as an excellent study guide for me! Will definitely recommend to others in need!!

Finally the PreTest Emergency Medicine gap is filled. With the soon-to-arrive EM shelf exam, this book will be an excellent resource.

Just bought this book...glad to see it's in USMLE format. One of the few books that give you explanations for the incorrect choices. Highly recommend!

While waiting for this to come to dvd in the US, I purchased the book with high hopes. I fell in love with the movie and the book only enhanced that love. Elizabeth Von Arnim brings the beauty of this Italian castle to life in a way that only words can do. The charm and enchantment are palpable. It is easy to get lost in their world so that you can experience it as though you are there with the four women.

The Enchanted April. I love this book. About ladies way ahead of their time - before women's lib had come on the scene. Takes place in a rented villa in Italy for one idyllic month in April - ladies vacationing without their husbands and finding themselves.

Having loved both filmed versions of this story, I came to the book not anticipating any surprises, and in that respect I was correct. What I did get, however, was a more fully-formed understanding of each of the four women who come to San Salvatore. Each has her own quest, and each is surprised in the way that her quest is resolved.

Elizabeth von Arnim can harness language in ways that few other authors are able. She is, for instance, able to display what a walking joke Mr. Wilkins is, while letting him think that he's the very model of an educated man.

I started off loathing both Mrs. Fisher and Lady Caroline Dester in a way that wasn't true when watching the films. This made their transformations that much more satisfying, in the end.

I'm now interested in reading other books from Elizabeth von Arnim and, even more importantly, visiting the castello where the story is based. She wrote The Enchanted April after her own visit, and it has continued to "enchant" travelers in the many years since the publication of her novel. I can't wait to see the "tub of love" and be surrounded by wistaria myself.

This is one of the most delightful, readable books I've ever encountered. The movie is terrific -- but the book is even better. An afternoon in a comfortable chair with "The Enchanted April" is one of the best gifts to myself that I can imagine. It's a good gift to share with a friend, too.

Roger Hart's voice draws real emotions from characters who in their sincerity speak deeply to an attentive reader. The collection reads like a novel and the characters linger through the pages.

Roger Hart's Erratics is a book of stories about real people who we cannot help but learn to love. No artificial fictions here. Just people like us, suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and trying to survive. Les and Walt and Highway and the other characters who people these stories are lonely and looking and sometimes find the love they need. And they are always vulnerable. There is a lot of Raymond Carver in this work. I recommend it to anybody who wants soft-edged stories with a punch.

Enthusiastic Recommend: Erratics, Stories by Roger Hart
Twelve stories and 130 pages - a nice book to carry and read in short stretches. All these stories have a haunting dark side, but are not really dark. They are a little like a painting that you see as yellow at first glance, but a longer look reveals a midnight blue under-painting. The first couple of stories in this book don't require you to look too closely to see the blue. It's there. In the later stories, you can choose not to see the blue at all if you don't want to. I liked the later stories better - the ones where the yellow paint was thicker. But every one of Hart's people is believable and worth remembering. Their dialogue, sprinkled with humor, rings true. I liked these people, rooted for them, even those whose disturbing dark side is not covered up very well.

I found this book to be a wonderful surprise. If you enjoy the fiction of Raymond Carver, Chekhov, or Tim O'Brien, I would recommend you pick it up. I realize these are big name authors but "Erratics" has the same kind of style and content that I personally can't get enough of. He is able to mix charming characters, witty dialogue, and often dismal circumstances to form a collection of short stories that will leave you smiling.

Getting to know the Barones better! What a treat! May the reruns stay on forever. I would love to find one that I haven't seen, but unfortunately, that is impossible!

Everybody Loves Raymond has to be the one of the funniest comedies on TV today. It has been playing since 1996 and is still fresh and funny in it's brand new episodes.
The cast includes:
-Ray Romano as Ray Barone, the overall star of the show. He has a house, a job as a sports writer for Newsday, a wife Debra (Patricia Heaton), and three children- two twin boys (Jeffrey and Michael) and a girl (Ally). Ray's ignorance is quite funny!
-Patricia Heaton as Ray's wife, Debra Barone. she is much more intelligent than him and is always tolerating Ray's family. She's the only "normal one" of the bunch!
-Brad Garrett as Ray's older brother, Robert Barone. Robert is always insanely jealous of his younger brother and how "lucky" he is for living Robert's dream of having a house and a family. Robert, for a time, lives with his and Ray's parents, but eventually moves out and gets his own apartment. Robert is always visiting Ray's home and is also always craving attention from his mother, Marie, since Raymond is undoubtedly her favorite child.
-Doris Roberts as Marie, Ray's mother. Marie lives across the street with Ray's father (Frank) and is an unbelievable cook. She is not particularly fond of Debra, and always finds some flaw with anything Debra is doing or cooking. She loves to make fun of Debra's housework and cooking. She is constantly made fun of by her husband, Frank, who obviously cannot stand her even though they have been married for 45 years. She undoubtedly favors Raymond over Robert, and even openly admits it a few times, such as in one of my favorite quotes: "I knew something was wrong with that meatloaf, I should have thrown it out or given it to Robbie." However, despite her unfriendly sides, she loves her family truly and always attempts to act out of love (though it doesn't always appear that way).
-And finally, Peter Boyle as Ray's father, Frank. Frank is a truly disgusting man who doesn't show love well and totally lacks taste or class in public. According to Ray, he once "peed in the yard" and "threw his shoe at a flamingo to protect his sandwich". Frank's comments to Marie are hilarious (as are Marie's comments to Debra). In one Thanksgiving episode, Frank admits that he truly loves Marie, which is obviously why their relationship has lasted 45 years. Frank thoroughly enjoys all types of food and cooking and also watching TV with his pants unbuckled.

So, there you have it. ELR is truly a great show. And while the upcoming season ('04-'05) will be it's last, this book is the perfect companion to the show, including lots of show information and pictures. If you love ELR, you should get this book.

Also, check out ELR: Season 1 on DVD here at Amazon.

"Everybody Loves Raymond: Our Family Album" is an ideal companion for the classic sitcom that ran for 9 successful years and continues to be loved through daily reruns.

Written by Ray Romano and series creator Phil Rosenthal, this book contains extensive information about the show, the cast and crew, and the individual episodes. It really is the perfect thing for fans who can't get enough of the show and want something a little more. This book includes an interview from everyone in the main cast (as well as some crew members), they talk a little bit about the Sweeten kids (who, of course, played Ray and Debra's three children on the show), and hundreds of color photos fill every page (both stills from the actual episodes and candid behind-the-scenes pictures). There are highlighted sections for some of the most popular episodes from each season, which are accompanied by photos and lighthearted comments from Romano and Rosenthal. There are even pictures and information about some of the cast and crew's real-life family members, which die-hard fans will love to see. Then, at the end, there is a complete episode guide for the first 7 1/2 seasons, which lists a brief synopsis and a "memorable moment" from each episode.

The only problem with this book is that, as I mentioned above, it only covers Seasons 1-7 and half of Season 8. I personally don't understand why they didn't at least wait until the entire Season 8 wrapped up before publishing this. Hopefully, though, they will come out with a revised edition that goes all the way through Season 9. Despite that, however, this is still a very valuable book to buy if you are an avid fan of "Raymond." It offers a lot of insight from everyone involved with the show, and it is more than just a short book with some pictures. It's very precise and informative, and you really get a feeling of what a special group of people worked together for those 9 years. It is sad that they could not continue the series for at least one more season, but they certainly went out on top and have deserved every bit of the credit they have received. "The sitcom of our times," it is indeed!

Oh!! i just cant get enough of the series. This book brings you inside stories, pictures and what not. Yeah, it does not cover all 9 seasons, but is still a great buy @ Amazon. Because they sell it pretty cheap here.

Go ahead and get one. You would love it.

I just got this book last week and I was amazed at how many pictures of the show were in there and they even put how they make an episode,now I know It's kind of weird a kid watching elr but everytime i watch the show I crack up, I have seen ATon of episodes and I also own seasons 5&6 on dvd.if you are addicted to everybody loves raymond like me and watch the show everytime It's on than this is definintly 1,000,000% the book for you there Is only on con about the book and here It is.

CON:the book only covers seasons 1-7 and a tiny bit of 8.

excelent resource for the bedside nurse to care for patients with advanced illness. Great tables and recommendations for multiple symptoms.

Although I have been a icu nurse for the past 20 years, I am new to end of life care. This book is with me for reference. I am becoming more informed each day. I especially like the fact I can research a symptom and then treat it without delay. The lay out of the book is easy to follow with fifteen of the most common symptoms experienced with the dying.

An excellent Primer on the subject with clinical vignettes and straight-forward discussion and therapeutic suggestions.

I recently started as a Hospice Nurse. I have found this book to be a great tool. It is very simple to use and easily understood.

This book is highly recommended. With your college chm and phy texts handy, this book will prepare for any MCAT chm passage in just a few weeks (the only topics I personally needed my texts for were thermochm. and electrochm.). The 7 concise chapters with in-ch. Q's are highly effective pedagogically and for quick review. Combined with MCAT-style, 30 min exams for each ch., you will quickly isolate your deficiencies and improve your score most efficiently.

I had an outstanding chm professor a few years ago (department chair and text author), and I'm sure he would endorse this book for its pedagogical quality. I endorse it for its quality as a review and MCAT study guide. Of all the MCAT prep materials I've used so far (Kaplan, PR, NOVA, ARCO) this is the highest quality. Recommended for all persons preparing for the MCAT.

If you did well in gen chem, then this book will be great for reviewing concepts in a timely manner. The section on acid\base chemistry and electrochemistry are quick and to the point.

This book contains all the info necessary to do well on the Physical Sciences section of the MCAT. Everything is presented very clearly and this book truly gives you an understanding of mcat chemistry. I recently took the April MCAT and I must say that this book and the Examkrackers physics made me feel like the PS was a JOKE! Their materials allow you to understand the mcat science conceptually such that no mcat item is EVER intimidating. Each lecture is complemented with a 30min exam where you can test the concepts as you review. (They're challenging though) Examkrackers all the way with no Imitations!!!

This book is layed out in a fashion that allows you to learn the material in a simple but productive manner. If your going to take the mcat this book will teach you chemistry.

Having left South West London twenty five years ago I have, like most of us, wondered what the kids I grew up with are doing now. Up until around `81' I would go back to visit every couple of weeks and the conversation would invariably turn to "Who's in jail?" "Who just got out?" Eventually the question would become "Who's dead?" "Who's alive?"

I remember one of my best friends Noel showing me a paper clipping from the South London Press reporting on his failed stick up of an off-license in Balham. By 1980 that was the way the wind was blowing. As kids we were always involved in some life threatening escapade or another, but it was more for kicks and only occasionally criminal. But by the time half my friends were in remand centres or borstals I knew I was well out of it.

So although it came as a massive surprise, it really shouldn't have, when I recently discovered that the aforementioned Noel is now better known as Razor Smith and is currently serving life for armed robbery.

Smith has shot, slashed and robbed his way into gangland legend. Before his life sentence he was the frightener in a gang of four known as the `Laughing Bank Robbers' who carried out a string of bank raids around South London, he has fifty eight criminal convictions to his name and has now chosen to write his autobiography - "A Few Kind Words and a Loaded Gun."

Described by G.Q magazine as "One of the most powerful and intelligent crime memoirs we've ever read" and "extraordinary" by the Guardian, I just thought it plain surreal to be standing in the middle of Waterstones seeing my name included in the `lavishly blood splattered' memoirs of a major career criminal. Names, places, incidents, half forgotten friends and enemies and even my brother all contextualised in the pre-teen remembrances of a kid I took my first and only pinch with. (For messing around on a railway track - ironically) And although Smith is no killer and I'm certainly no choirboy - I felt like Pat O'Briens's priest from the movie `Angels With Dirty Faces' reading about the gangster exploits of his boyhood chum Rocky Sullivan played by James Cagney. In fact we were all Cagney fanatics in those days, endlessly acting out scenes from White Heat or Public Enemy on the roof tops of Streatham High Road.

The book goes on to outline various `tear ups' between all those old sub-cultures of the late 70's such as the Rockabilly's, Skinheads, Punks, Smoothies and Teds which culminated, perhaps, some of the most notorious pre-gun gang wars such as `The Battle of Morden,' `The White Swan Massacre,' and the seemingly fortnightly riots at the Chickaboom Club in Carlshalton. But by the time most of these incidents took place I was lost in music and Razor had gone the way of the gun.

As I say, we all wonder about what happened to the kids we grew up with. I just never thought I'd find out in such a spectacular fashion.

Noel `Razor' Smith is currently residing in HMP Grendon.

I can't say that I am a fan of criminal autobiographies. And Razor Smith is not a notorious criminal of the Dillinger variety. He's a common thief, a man who used guns, knives and other physical violence to frighten others into giving them his money. He justifies his bank robberies, his primary vocation, by saying the deposits were insured. But who does Smith think pays for the insurance premiums? Who does Smith think pays for the stress and trauma he inflicted on innocent people who just happened to be there when he threatened their lives with his gun?

None of that, however, takes away from Smith's skill as a writer. Now serving what could be the rest of his natural life in prison, much of Smith's autobiography sounds like leftists like Leonard Bernstein during the 70s: it's the victim's fault for making the criminal. Nonsense. Smith chose his own life.

Smith appears remarkably candid in recounting his youth and how he gravitated toward the criminal life, not only because it beat working in more traditional means to earn a living, but because such petty criminality is remarkably common in England. At first I didn't believe Smith's tales of promiscuous youthful violence as a way of English life. A bit of research confirmed his claims. England is not Paradise.

As a grown man whose son had his own problems with the police and committed suicide, Smith sounds remorseful. Whether this is a ploy to advance his claim for parole is obviously unknowable. Regardless, Smith's memoir of his life is an enthrally, worthwhile excursion into the criminal's mind. Well-written and absorbing.

Jerry

South Londoner Noel "Razor" Smith's long history of crime culminated as a member of "The Laughing Bank Robbers", an armed firm known for their "gallows humour" who cracked jokes while collecting their loot - even, on one job, dressing in festive Santa hats and wishing terrified customers and staff a "Merry Christmas". Smith was also part of the Rockabilly scene who with his gang the Balham Wildkatz battled it out with punks, skinheads and other rivals at a time when the various London subcultures were tearing into each other at every opportunity with boots, fists, and whatever else was handy.

"A Few Kind Words..." stands head and shoulders above most crime memoirs. Firstly, it is not ghostwritten - Smith discovered a talent for writing whilst behind bars that eventually got him published in national newspapers. Secondly, prison is where he is right now, serving a life sentence (or technically speaking, eight of them). So let's just say that, on top of being extremely well-written, this book has an edge over much of its 'Real Crime' contemporaries in what can often be quite a tacky and superficial run-of-the-mill genre.

Smith loads his memoir with enough raucous mayhem to more-than-satisfy on the entertainment front, but also often pauses for intelligent, analytical reflections on the workings of his own criminal mind, and the life he has spent "fashioning the chains that now bind him". Through writing, he says, he has "found a more acceptable way of expressing himself" than via the violence and crime that has taken away his most basic human right: freedom.

Born in 1960 into an average Irish working-class family, Smith has none of the usual excuses of a broken home or violent abuse to account for his slip down the wrong tracks, and to his credit, insists it was entirely his own choice, something he walked into with eyes wide open to the consequences. Yet, in his exploration of the past, he interestingly cites an adolescent experience of unprovoked "torture" and forced false-confession at the hands of drunken police as a turning-point in his attitude towards "the system", sparking a rebellious spirit that - who knows - may not have otherwise been there, or atleast come so prominently to the fore. He also explains what it was like during the 70s when, with the IRA's bombing campaign at its height and anti-Irishness rife, London-Irish kids were often compelled to either feign Englishness or assert their own identity, sometimes physically.

Though such factors alone can hardly take the blame for the self-destructive one-man crimewave that Smith became, it does suggest how he would have felt the kind of outsider status that can often can lead in a lawless direction. However, with Smith's addiction to the power and adrenaline of armed robbery ("It was a rush that no amount of cocaine or Ecstasy could imitate") it is hard to imagine anything other than participation in an actual war (Smith's own suggestion, by the way) satiating such an overwhelming urge.

Smith gets great pleasure in considering himself one of the last London "Chaps", criminals who followed codes of conduct and honour taken from noir gangster films and westerns. Here he paints all the usual mythical pictures of gangsters who were honest, moral and fair (as opposed to the modern stereotypical urban criminal, cracked-up to the eyeballs, and would kill his own granny for a tenner). But in wild contradiction, he also describes himself as "a thug from a council estate" who admits to acts of violence that were "vicious and heinous" - such as his penchant for slashing faces, presumably - hence the nickname. (The book actually ends in a statement of show-off criminal no-value that defies the writing's overall intelligence.)

Nevertheless, Smith generally paints himself as human rather than hero (he doesn't always win - he often quite brutally loses), and he writes with an awareness that, due to his endless weakness for tempers, tantrums and slashings, he is not exactly endearing himself to the reader. But that is a winning ingredient, because in a crime memoir the down-to-earth honesty and lack of excuses makes a real change.

Mirroring Smith's life, much of the book is set in prison - in fact, Smith brings us on a tour of practically every prison in southern England. In these chapters he rails against what he sees as "holiday-camp" depictions in the British tabloid press where prisoners are treated with kid gloves and a revolving-door policy operates. Conversely, Smith runs through the many bad conditions, brutalities, injustices and corruption he has witnessed - which is enlightening but, of course, depressing.

Smith's endless revisits, after umpteen chances of freedom, may leave you exasperated and out of patience - Razor's life reads like a long prison sheet punctuated only by occasional bouts of freedom. But crime was evidently what he thrived on, his reason for living, and no amount of jail - despite its harshness - could quash his desire to keep going back to "the business" for more. Ultimately, in the book (until a massive life sentence in '99) he's springing back and forth like a yo-yo.

Of course, towards the end there are a few moments of regret (how could there not be?) but there's also a strong lingering sense of defiance (check out the last few paragraphs) that is quite startling. You're left remembering the zeal - an almost heady nostalgia - in which Razor Smith recounts his robberies, gangfights and prison escapes that leaves you wondering if given the chance he'd do it all again.

A career criminal is someone who is so committed to crime as a way of life that no amount of `rehabilitation' from the prison system can straighten him.

Razor Smith is a bank robber of the sort. In fact, he prefers robbing banks so much he'd rather give away three years of his life for a three-month fling with it, anytime. And when he gets bored looking at the same four walls everyday, he simply escapes. So easy, so he does it again and again and again. Life on the run has its extreme highs and lows but sooner or later it'll be back to the slammer for good when Old Bill and The System caught up. And they did. If Whitemoor is as escape proof as it's said to be, Smith could well be serving out his eight life sentences properly, this time.

In his early 30's (he's now 45) Smith took it to himself to learn to read and write properly. The consequences were quite unexpected: Not only did he discover a passion for books and writing, people actually paid attention to him and to what he said on paper. And because he had plenty of gripes against The System by now, he had plenty to say. Later, an A-Levels in Law and Honors in Journalism helped focus his anger and aggression and lend weight to his arguments. His newfound skills and plain-speaking, wry, observant prose make A few Kind Words an accomplished first memoir. It is also clear Smith now has every stab at a career that is leagues above the Road Sweeper job he once had and certainly as potentially profitable as the Other One.

But if Smith wins both our ear and our empathy, it's because he manages to talk about his condemnable behavior - and much of this is violent - without so much as a finger pointing in any direction except towards his own.

To begin with, he was at 15 a school dropout with too much time on his hands. Adrenaline Junkie might as well be his middle name. The first time he was arrested was for burglary, for which he was sent to a youth custody center. `If I came from a broken home,' he states quite matter-of-factly, `it's only because I broke it,' referring to how normal his parents and siblings were in comparison to him and not just the countless times armed police had to break down the front door of the family home, looking for him.

It didn't help either that the Irish cockney was growing up in the land of The Kray Brothers, the Great Train Robbers - the likes of John McVitie and such, where there was romance in thievery.

`There is a code (of honor) handed down by generations of infamous criminals, both real and fictional that you learn it from watching others in life and watching westerns and old gangster films.' Smith tells us, `this code meant you never needed to be ashamed of being a criminal, as long as you're the right one.'

The code included the imperative to be loyal: if a thug was caught giving evidence against his fellow thug, he will be striped (slashed) across the face with a sharp instrument in `a curving line from the corner of the mouth to the earlobe' to mark him traitor to his kind. Very likely, he'll end up starving in the streets.

So, to sum up his gentleman thief values or as a tribute to Al Capone or both, Smith took the title of his autobiography from the Chicago mob boss's quote, `Sometimes you can get more with a few kind words and a loaded gun than you can with a few kind words.'

Much later, in examining the forces that contributed to him staying in this rather vicious cycle, Smith points out the Crime Justice System for having failed to do the one thing it was supposed to do, namely in rehabilitating its criminals. Rehabilitation must help criminals secure the skills to thrive out there. How can the System realistically expect a highly-skilled ex-con to resist the siren call of crime which promises (and also delivers) a much more comfortable life for them and their family for a low-skilled, dead-end job that pays just enough to survive on carpet toast and Cup O Soup?

Most of us `straight-goers' can only guess at the reasons that keep prisoners on the path directly to the slammer and who better than Smith to shed a light. And what this noteworthy new writer drags with him into the cold light of day are the things we should not avert our eyes from.